Summary: Homework from the night before: I will assign a simple homework assignment the night before that requires students to take a look at five physical characteristics that they have and compare them to their parents physical characteristics (for example, they could use hair color and style, eye color, height, and skin tone). This will get students into the mindset of the topic of genetics and hopefully generate some curiosity about which traits they inherited from their parents and which they did not. If students do not know their biological parents, then they could research a famous family or look at a friends' family.
This lesson consists of a pre-assessment survey that each student will fill out. The survey lists some common misconceptions that students have about genetics and students will rate the statements on a scale from very true to very false. This pre-assessment will give me an idea of what concepts I need to focus less or more on. We will then dive into an inquiry activity that requires students to predict the results of Mendel's genetic pea plant crosses. I will briefly skim the pres-assessment survey while walking around the room guiding students' work. We will discuss the conclusions students reached and then begin taking notes on the basic concepts and terms in Chapter 11 of their textbook, such as Mendel's work with pea plants and his results. I will end the class by relating the terms we took notes on to the Mendel Mystery inquiry activity.
Objectives: Students will demonstrate their prior knowledge of genetics by completing a Pre-assessment survey. Students will interpret the results of Gregor Mendel and relate the results to the genetics terms we use today.
As students walk into the room, I will be standing at the doorway, greeting each student and telling them to take out homework from the previous night. I will check off the homework and take attendance simultaneously by walking around the room, glancing at each paper and giving them a check plus, check, check minus, or zero depending on how much effort they put into the assignment. As I walk around the room, I will encourage students to discuss with their lab partner their results that they found.
Once the homework is checked off and attendance is taken care of, I will open discussion to the entire class. "What sort of characteristics did you look at?" Did they only look for one characteristic? "Did anyone find anything puzzling?" -some students may point out that both of their parents have brown eyes, while they have blue eyes. "Does anyone have any ideas or explanations for why you don't always have the same characteristics as your parents?"
This discussion should spark the students' interest about how genes are passed from parents to offspring. It may cause them to recall prior knowledge about dominant and recessive traits. I'll write down any specific questions that students have about genetics and keep this question list hanging on a wall in the room. This way, as questions are answered throughout the unit, I can point students back to the questions they had at the beginning of the unit. Writing down the questions lets students know that I care about their curiosity and want them to be interested in the topic. I will then explain that we will be starting a unit on genetics and all of their questions will be answered. This opening discussion should take about 15-20 minutes of the class period.
I like this strategy. Is there a way that you can capture these questions so that you and the class could come back to them. How about writing them on an overhead transparency?
Middle: Since middle school curriculums touch upon genetics, I want to have an idea about what students already know about the topic. I will explain this to the students and introduce the Pre-assessment survey. The survey lists some common misconceptions that students have about genetics and students will rate the statements on a scale from very true to very false. This pre-assessment will give me an idea of what concepts I need to focus less or more on. This will allow more time in the unit for me to go more in depth with a certain topic. Students will be given about 10 minutes to fill out this worksheet and I will allow them to discuss any ideas they have with their partners.
Did you create the pre-assessment? I like the half sheet approach.
The remaining 30 minutes of class will be dedicated to the first part of an inquiry-based activity that requires students to put themselves in Gregor Mendel's shoes and follow his process of crossing pea plants. Since I will introduce the activity by giving background information about Gregor Mendel, the inquiry will last two days. The inquiry activity proceeds as follows:
DAY 1: 1. Introduce Gregor Mendel. I will put an overhead picture of him on the board and tell students about his life as a school teacher and a monk, and about the experiments he performed in the garden of a monastery he lived at. I will also have students compare a picture of teosinte and modern day corn. Modern day corn evolved from the Mexican plant of teosinte, which is smaller and contains less kernels. Geneticists have evolved corn over the years to resists insects and contain more nutrients, so I will use this as a real life example for students to see. 2. Hand out student worksheet. 3. Write on the board the seven crosses that Mendel conducted:
Characteristic
Traits and crosses
Height
Tall x Short
Flower Color
Purple x White
Flower Position
Axial x Terminal
Seed Color
Yellow x Green
Seed Shape
Round x Wrinkled
Pod Shape
Inflated x Constricted
Pod Color
Green x Yellow
3. Explain that these organisms are the parental generation. 4. Have students write their predictions of what the First Filial generation will look like. They will use the worksheet as a guide but will complete the activity on a separate piece of paper in their notes. -explain what filial means ("son" or "daughter" in Latin). They may work with the person sitting next to them. Students may guess the offspring will show a mixture of the two traits being crosses. 5. I will show them what Mendel actually obtained when he performed these experiments. (All of the crosses showed the dominant trait, or the first trait listed in the chart)
DAY 2:
How will you open this day? 6. In a whole group discussion, ask students why they think the other trait for each characteristic disappeared and whether they think that trait is gone for good. Don't give the answer! 7. Show students the results Mendel obtained when he crossed the F1 generation with each other. Explain that this set of offspring is called the F2 generation. 8. Have students come up with their own explanations for why the other trait (the recessive one) showed up again in the F2 generation. 9. Students complete the three analysis questions at the end of the worksheet. It is homework if they don't finish in class.
Why not give them time to answer the questions in class so that you can discuss the answers in the next section? Closing: The last few minutes of class will be spent reviewing what we learned from the inquiry activity. I will ask for volunteers to share their ideas about why the second trait disappeared in the F1 generation and why it came back in the F2 generation. I will not necessarily give students the correct answers because I want them to read in their textbooks for homework, but I will tell students if they are close to the actual results. I will make sure to stress that it's ok if students still don't understand the concept completely because it was meant to be an inquiry activity where not all the answers are given. The homework will then be assigned to be completed for the next day. I will stress the importance of doing this homework because we will use it to begin tomorrow's lesson.
Homework: Complete the first three analysis questions of the Mendel inquiry activity. Read pages 308-316 of your textbook. Answer the questions on the worksheet handed out at the end of class. Pay special attention to the questions labeled SYKC: Share Your Knowledge Challenge. Students will be asked to share their diagrams they came up with for these specific questions.
Assessments: 1. Pre-assessment- Survey 2. Formative assessment- I will walk around the room as students are working on the inquiry activity to make sure they are on task. I will listen to their ideas and gauge their level of knowledge of the principle of dominance by how in depth their ideas are. 3. Formative assessment- I will be collecting the analysis questions and counting it as a classwork grade.
Summary:
Homework from the night before: I will assign a simple homework assignment the night before that requires students to take a look at five physical characteristics that they have and compare them to their parents physical characteristics (for example, they could use hair color and style, eye color, height, and skin tone). This will get students into the mindset of the topic of genetics and hopefully generate some curiosity about which traits they inherited from their parents and which they did not. If students do not know their biological parents, then they could research a famous family or look at a friends' family.
This lesson consists of a pre-assessment survey that each student will fill out. The survey lists some common misconceptions that students have about genetics and students will rate the statements on a scale from very true to very false. This pre-assessment will give me an idea of what concepts I need to focus less or more on. We will then dive into an inquiry activity that requires students to predict the results of Mendel's genetic pea plant crosses. I will briefly skim the pres-assessment survey while walking around the room guiding students' work. We will discuss the conclusions students reached and then begin taking notes on the basic concepts and terms in Chapter 11 of their textbook, such as Mendel's work with pea plants and his results. I will end the class by relating the terms we took notes on to the Mendel Mystery inquiry activity.
Objectives:
Students will demonstrate their prior knowledge of genetics by completing a Pre-assessment survey.
Students will interpret the results of Gregor Mendel and relate the results to the genetics terms we use today.
Materials:
Pre-assessment survey
Inquiry worksheets from Biology Inquiries, pg. 104-109
Picture that compares teosinte to modern corn http://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/corn-and-teosinte_h1.jpg
Homework questions sheet
Instruction:
Opening:
As students walk into the room, I will be standing at the doorway, greeting each student and telling them to take out homework from the previous night. I will check off the homework and take attendance simultaneously by walking around the room, glancing at each paper and giving them a check plus, check, check minus, or zero depending on how much effort they put into the assignment. As I walk around the room, I will encourage students to discuss with their lab partner their results that they found.
Once the homework is checked off and attendance is taken care of, I will open discussion to the entire class.
"What sort of characteristics did you look at?" Did they only look for one characteristic?
"Did anyone find anything puzzling?"
-some students may point out that both of their parents have brown eyes, while they have blue eyes.
"Does anyone have any ideas or explanations for why you don't always have the same characteristics as your parents?"
This discussion should spark the students' interest about how genes are passed from parents to offspring. It may cause them to recall prior knowledge about dominant and recessive traits. I'll write down any specific questions that students have about genetics and keep this question list hanging on a wall in the room. This way, as questions are answered throughout the unit, I can point students back to the questions they had at the beginning of the unit. Writing down the questions lets students know that I care about their curiosity and want them to be interested in the topic. I will then explain that we will be starting a unit on genetics and all of their questions will be answered. This opening discussion should take about 15-20 minutes of the class period.
I like this strategy. Is there a way that you can capture these questions so that you and the class could come back to them. How about writing them on an overhead transparency?
Middle:
Since middle school curriculums touch upon genetics, I want to have an idea about what students already know about the topic. I will explain this to the students and introduce the Pre-assessment survey. The survey lists some common misconceptions that students have about genetics and students will rate the statements on a scale from very true to very false. This pre-assessment will give me an idea of what concepts I need to focus less or more on. This will allow more time in the unit for me to go more in depth with a certain topic. Students will be given about 10 minutes to fill out this worksheet and I will allow them to discuss any ideas they have with their partners.
Did you create the pre-assessment? I like the half sheet approach.
The remaining 30 minutes of class will be dedicated to the first part of an inquiry-based activity that requires students to put themselves in Gregor Mendel's shoes and follow his process of crossing pea plants. Since I will introduce the activity by giving background information about Gregor Mendel, the inquiry will last two days.
The inquiry activity proceeds as follows:
DAY 1:
1. Introduce Gregor Mendel. I will put an overhead picture of him on the board and tell students about his life as a school teacher and a monk, and about the experiments he performed in the garden of a monastery he lived at. I will also have students compare a picture of teosinte and modern day corn. Modern day corn evolved from the Mexican plant of teosinte, which is smaller and contains less kernels. Geneticists have evolved corn over the years to resists insects and contain more nutrients, so I will use this as a real life example for students to see.
2. Hand out student worksheet.
3. Write on the board the seven crosses that Mendel conducted:
4. Have students write their predictions of what the First Filial generation will look like. They will use the worksheet as a guide but will complete the activity on a separate piece of paper in their notes.
-explain what filial means ("son" or "daughter" in Latin). They may work with the person sitting next to them. Students may guess the offspring will show a mixture of the two traits being crosses.
5. I will show them what Mendel actually obtained when he performed these experiments. (All of the crosses showed the dominant trait, or the first trait listed in the chart)
DAY 2:
How will you open this day?
6. In a whole group discussion, ask students why they think the other trait for each characteristic disappeared and whether they think that trait is gone for good. Don't give the answer!
7. Show students the results Mendel obtained when he crossed the F1 generation with each other. Explain that this set of offspring is called the F2 generation.
8. Have students come up with their own explanations for why the other trait (the recessive one) showed up again in the F2 generation.
9. Students complete the three analysis questions at the end of the worksheet. It is homework if they don't finish in class.
Why not give them time to answer the questions in class so that you can discuss the answers in the next section?
Closing:
The last few minutes of class will be spent reviewing what we learned from the inquiry activity. I will ask for volunteers to share their ideas about why the second trait disappeared in the F1 generation and why it came back in the F2 generation. I will not necessarily give students the correct answers because I want them to read in their textbooks for homework, but I will tell students if they are close to the actual results. I will make sure to stress that it's ok if students still don't understand the concept completely because it was meant to be an inquiry activity where not all the answers are given. The homework will then be assigned to be completed for the next day. I will stress the importance of doing this homework because we will use it to begin tomorrow's lesson.
Homework: Complete the first three analysis questions of the Mendel inquiry activity. Read pages 308-316 of your textbook. Answer the questions on the worksheet handed out at the end of class. Pay special attention to the questions labeled SYKC: Share Your Knowledge Challenge. Students will be asked to share their diagrams they came up with for these specific questions.
Assessments:
1. Pre-assessment- Survey
2. Formative assessment- I will walk around the room as students are working on the inquiry activity to make sure they are on task. I will listen to their ideas and gauge their level of knowledge of the principle of dominance by how in depth their ideas are.
3. Formative assessment- I will be collecting the analysis questions and counting it as a classwork grade.